Free Rice-What a concept!

I was immediately struck by the concept of Free Rice, when I had heard about it last year. What more can you ask for? Donate rice, just by answering Vocabulary questions. In the process, you also improve your vocabulary, and mind you, if you think that it is another run-of-the-mill affair, try scoring more than 45. I played the game very regularly, and it was obviously driven both by my penchant for learning new words and by my ever-bubbling quest to do something philanthropic. I don’t know why the visit to the site died down subsequently though. Probably my preoccupation with other stuff played its part.

When I happened to visit the site today, I was pleasantly surprised to see the site grow not only its content but also its reach. There are more subjects, viz. Mathematics, Language, Geography, Chemistry etc to choose from, and their levels are good enough to cater to and also teach every group of people. Further I read and saw the success it has already achieved. Widely hailed by media and people alike, it has reached to the neediest zones in the world. The most promising part is that the site can only grow bigger than here.

I feel an obligation, thus, to promote it. I had already shared the link with some of my friends. But now it needs to go out to the world. Play, enjoy, learn, donate and feel better. That’s its mantra. The Internet never ceases to amaze me.

Time to say, two and two is four

A few things, seemingly of passing nature only, can apprise you more than the calculated ones. They are more honest and humble too; and create that self-cognizant view that you had always wanted to develop.

It was an honour that one of my friends asked me to review his MBA essays. I am considered good in English, but it takes far more that some crammed words and exercised grammar to be a good writer, or more so, a correct reviewer. I knew this, and I feared this; and the demon invariably came out when I started reading his essays. They were not what I am used to. They were expressions of facts, and not poetic lyrics. I hate facts, because they are simple and true. The formality of the essays was too good for me, and frankly speaking, beyond my reviewing acumen. I knew the essays were not the best, but they were glorious for me, because I am not good at writing straight facts. For me, two and two is never four. Why should it be? If it is four, then it is Mathematics, not literature. Such views have made my writing unbound, but also corrupt.

Naturally I was not able to add anything to the essays, except amend a few glaring grammatical mistakes. He would have been disappointed, but I was more, because my inability which I had always wanted to conceal was again revealed. I want to be good, nay brilliant, in factual writing. I have taken his essays as the starting point of my melioration. Hopefully in due course of time, I am able to develop not only interest but also flair for that kind of writing.

A damn good writer

I love the way Amitav Ghosh writes. He is a seriously good writer. I have read only one of his works, ‘The Hungry Tide’, but the experience was enough to bind me to his literary style. He elucidated the characters in the novel so well that you felt you were the protagonists out there.

He is again in the limelight now after his latest novel, ‘Sea of Poppies’ was released last month. The first of the trilogy, Ibis, it is a tale of India of early eighteenth century, beset with opium trade and the related migration of the poppy growers. The story is not to my full liking, but there is ample scope for him here to sketch the characters in his own unique ways. In fact, in the reviews, this very point has been highly praised.

I feel he gets this perspective of characters from his detailed observation of life. A writer needs to be discerning enough to know what and how people in front of him think. His work is nothing but his own life’s story drawn from others. Amitav’s Bengali roots are exhibited very often and starkly in his writings.

As soon as time permits, I am going to get hold of his another famous, in fact the most credited, novel, ‘The Glass Palace’. It was in front of me a few years back, when one of my friends was reading it. But somehow, I let slip the chance. Now, I will have to rummage for it. Sigh!

Golden words

"Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change himself"

"If all our wishes were gratified, we would often be sorry"

"Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it"

First words are special

Πρώτες λόγια μου –

Με λένε Πραμπακαρ Ραντζαν

The most helpful rule of English Grammar

While writing, I ever wondered about the right forms of words to be used in a sentence. I still grapple at many places. But one rule has helped me the most in clearing many of my doubts:-

" The noun or pronoun following a preposition or a transitive verb has to be in objective or accusative case"

The above rule makes the following sentences correct:-

1. The wrath was unleashed on him.
2. Let him and me decide.
3. I want to excel like him at the Olympiads.
4. Life moves fast without us ever realizing it.
5. He, including me, is at fault.

Isn't it fantastic?

To Kill A MockingBird

To put it straight at the outset, I must say I am not qualified enough yet to review this book written by Harper Lee. I had set my mind to do so while I was reading the novel, but by the time I reached the end, I found it to be beyond my literary acumen. The reason I say this is because of the mixed reactions I had on reading it.

I can’t say just to sound academic that I found the book very entertaining. It was boring at times, in fact, so dull that I had to flip the pages to go to the next happening part. I also took a long time to complete it. But there was something inherent in it that kept me linked to it and that something was never revealed to me even after the end. I am yet to master the art of reading between the lines :(

The book revolves around the lives of a widower and lawyer, Atticus Finch and his son, Jem and daughter, Louis. To be more precise, it is about his fight for the rights of a Black Man in the White People dominated society of Alabama, US during 1930s. The story is narrated through the innocent eyes of her daughter, Louis who presents the impartial and untarnished view of the things. Many times she wonders about the badness of our society and more importantly, indifference to it by the so-called learned people. The words spoken to her by her father symbolize the whole theme,

“Shoot all the Bluejays you want, if you can hit’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird”

The real mockingbird in the story is the Black Man, Tim Robinson, who had been wrongly charged of raping a white girl. Despite the righteous indignation of one and all, nobody except Atticus decides to challenge the system. Tim is nevertheless not spared, and he has to pay with his life. One poignant story told…

But where Lee scores is presenting another mockingbird hidden all along in the story and coming out only in the end. He is the enigmatic, Boo Radley, a spooky subject of interest for the children. He saves the lives of Jem and Louis, but also has been apparently coddling and helping them with other gifts. Nothing more than Louis’ disbelief on actually seeing him exemplifies how our chained ways of thinking have killed the mockingbirds of our society. Boo was a very good child and student, but his father’s insane and manic treatment rendered him to be permanently home-ridden.

The story is just amazing told in the most unobtrusive way, and it cuts across the ages. That’s why it is still a classic.

I also watched the movie after reading the book. Few movies match up to the excellence of their conceiver, but this movie actually was an add-on to the mesmerizing effect the book already had on me. Gregory Peck’s acting was superb in the movie, none more so famous and impelling than his courtroom histrionics which actually brought him the Oscar. The kids too were very adorable.

All in all, it was an unchartered territory for me. I need to move away from the Forsyths, Archers and Loodlums now, so that I don’t have to read others’ reviews to understand and write my own.

Hindi is more complete

I never had had a fascination for a foreign language. Hindi and English were and still are, what constitutes my world, if you exclude those zombie languages such as C, C++, Java etc. Sorry that was a very bad joke!

It is close to an year and a half since I came to Cyprus. Greek is the official language here. While they sounded very different at first, the Greek words, on look, had an unusual familiarity to them. The Greek alphabets all constituted the mathematical notations like alpha, beta, theta etc. I know the previous sentence should have been said otherwise. But that was how I felt on reading the Greek words, mathematical equations sans numbers and equality sign. It was easier though to make out their English equivalents if they were written in majuscule (capital) form, as most of the Greek alphabets in Capitals have the same form as those in English. Exceptions are there but they can be learned.

Having studied a bit of Greek now, I usually don't find much problem in identifying the words. But it is their phonetics which are giving me a tough time. First they have got an emphasis, a bit more than usual I think, on a few syllables in a word. Unless you have specifically memorized which ones to stress, you can't just make out on instinct (notwithstanding diacritical signs on the alphabets suggesting likewise). Worse still, even if you know, you will invariably fail to pronounce them perfectly to the tone and level desired. I know it happens with one trying to get familiar with a new language, but I can't help noticing the fact that the same alphabet gets pronounced differently under different conditions.

And it is here where Hindi scores. Hindi has alphabets which are pronounced the same way, no matter where and how they are used. So, for a novice trying to get acquainted with Hindi, it will be much easier to pronounce newer words on his own. It has got more alphabets, which is a downside I admit, but there is a very good demarcation of the way they are going to be pronounced. For instance, when I was learning the usage of the articles 'a' and 'an' before a word, English Grammar had many exceptions to the fact that 'an' is to be used before a vowel and 'a' before a consonant. I found a simple solution to this problem. I quickly transliterated the word to be preceded, in Hindi, and ascertained to use 'an' or 'a' based on whether the first alphabet of the transliterated word was a 'swar' or a 'vyanjan'. Swars and Vyanjans are the vowels and consonants in Hindi. And see they never fail here.

Hindi is more complex undoubtedly, significantly simpler than Sanskrit though- its parent and the only language considered to be truly perfect for computers. The larger number of alphabets, the 'ikaars' and 'ukaars' differing the pronunciation etc. are a deterrent, but they constitute a more complete set to play with. On personal note, I like English more, for its simplicity and unobtrusive hold on me, but I do realise Hindi is more complete.